Isolation-#Wattys2015

Excerpt 33- A Chat

The map Jacob sent me may as well have me wandering around the entire Biosphere Complex. By the time I finally found the new base, it was 4:17 in the afternoon. The corridor where the lounge was located was similar to the one we had left, minus the fact that there were huge, bullet proof glass windows letting in the light from the outside world. From outside the lounge, Mike and I were able to see the vast, rolling forest and the super highway that connected the labs to Ransol. The light that was coming in trough the windows was a golden orange color and the sky was a deep pink and gold. I could see the blue sun starting to dip below the mountain in the distance. The clouds had turned a swirl of pink, orange and red as well as light blue. Holy hell did Ios' star put on one hell of a show.

"Damn", I said pausing to look out the window, "are the sunsets always this nice?"

Mike nodded, "yep, this is just summer, in fall in winter it looks 4 times as cool."

"Hope I live to see it", I said as we stepped inside the lounge. It was set up basically the same as ours as far as the furniture was arranged. The couches, gaming console and kitchen area was on this side, while the security room, the bathroom and the sofa were on the other side. The duffel bags were piled up in the space between the couch and the walls and Sarah was at the stove cooking something. Allen was in the security room in the back and Jacob was sitting at the table working on something. Matt was playing something on the Xbox and James was sitting on the couch, looking at his PDA .

"Where's Tyler?", I asked, 'I don't see him around."

"He's with Alcatraz setting up shop for me in a nearby lab", Sarah said.

"I take Al's feeling better", I said as I set down my rifle and vest.

"He is", Sarah said, 'I've got him up and around because I wanna find any damage the fever might have done to his systems, I'm hoping that he'll agitate any damage so I can fix it."

"I'm not a tech expert", I said, "but I'm fairly certain that any damage done to Alcatraz would require a tech expert like Tyler."

"Ah-ha", Sarah said, "that's where you'd be wrong. Sure, Alcatraz's computerized systems run cold, but so does his biology. When he was rebuilt after the Mega Quake, his brain was modified to work at the low temperatures of his mechanics and computers. If the fever has done any damage, it would screw up his biology first, a Hydraulic strut isn't exactly as heat sensitive as your heart."

"Good point", I said taking my jacket off.

"Speaking of hearts", Sarah said, "I wanna have a look at yours."

"And you lost me", I sighed, "what for?"

"For one", Sarah said, "I saw you come back from your mission in the black rain with that slash on your chest that looked fairly deep. Secondly, I wanna make sure that all the DNA Mods you've got spliced into your genetics haven't screwed up your systems."

"Makes sense", I said, "but I think your gonna run into a fairly challenging problem."

"Which would be?", Sarah asked as we stepped out of the lounge.

"Acidic blood", I said, "you said it already hit you once when Martin threw me off the tower."

"X-Ray's and TEHS's don't exactly need to slice you open", Sarah smiled.

"TEHS?", I asked, "I've never even heard of that."

"Transmitting Electron Heart Scanner", Sarah said as she swiped a card through a security reader, "they were designed by Allen Ransol way before the turn of the century. He had been plagued with heart problems from the time he was born and since MRI's could never take a truly accurate picture of what was going on underneath your skin, he and his dad decided to put their know how to use. What a TEHS does is take a picture of every single atom in your body as well as run through your genetic code with a bio-scanner. It then uses the picture of the cells and atoms in your body and then uses your DNA code to produce one, low quality 16-Color Monochrome Bit Map image, or 1000, extremely High Res JPEG images. It's an amazing piece of tech really. It's 130 years old and even the best Coding Expert in the universe was scratching his head trying to figure that shit out. They were designed to take pictures of the cardiovascular system, but before he died Allen adapted it for use on other major body systems."